Improving Business

That general business conditions throughout the country have experienced marked improvement in recent months is attested by the compilation of gross and net earnings of Class I roads for January last, published this week. The net operating revenue, amounting to 5.54 per cent of property valuation, is not sensational--last March the percentage touched 5.83. But the earnings of this January resulted from much larger gross receipts, although operating expenses had exceeded those of January, 1922, by more than 20 per cent. This increased expense has, of course, largely been occasioned by much needed purchasing and repairing of equipment, impossible during previous leaner years. If the expansion of trade continues, railroad gross receipts should continue large, and permit a continued policy of improving equipment; this should in turn begin to reduce the item of " maintenance," which has naturally been proportionately heavy while old equipment had to be used. Such a policy is always most expensive in the end. The most serious foe to railroad prosperity is probably Congress, and not until December can the danger of further legislative experiment be added to the railroad managers' already sufficient burdens.